Harmonising Demographic and Socio-Economic Variables for Cross-National Comparative Survey Research

Prof. Dr. Jürgen H.P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik is head of Knowledge Transfer Unit of GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim, Germany. He is coordinating coordinate and organize the GESIS workshop and seminar program and organize the GESIS Summer School on Survey Methodology, starting in 2012. His main research interests are standardization and harmonization of demographic and socio-economic background variables for national and international comparison and cross-country comparative survey research. Dr. Uwe Warner is conseiller scientifique at the "Centre d'Etudes de Population, de Pauvreté et de Politiques Socio-Economiques / International Network for Studies in Technology, Environment, Alternatives, Development (CEPS/INSTEAD)" in Luxembourg. He is the national coordinator of ESS in Luxembourg; he was responsible for the Luxembourgian data collection and data integration into ECHP; he is in charge of carrying out various national surveys in Luxembourg. His main researchinterests are standardization and harmonization of demographic and socio-economic background variables for international comparison, cross-country comparative survey research, and international studies on income distribution, poverty and social welfare.

Chapter 1. Harmonisation of Demographic and Socio-Economic Variables.- Chapter 2. The Harmonisation Process: Harmonosation is not Translation.- Chapter 3. Existing Measurement Instruments for Data Collection.- Chapter 4. Background Variables for Cross-National Comparative Research: Data Sources.- Chapter 5. Core Social Variables and Their Implentation in Measurement Instruments.- Chapter 6. The Proposed Set of Instruments at a Glance.- Chapter 7. Comparability of Currently Available Survey Data.